“Having a two-year-old is like having a blender that you don’t have the top for.” — Jerry Seinfeld

The same can be said for having a pair of “tweens” in the house. (“Tweens” are kids who are no longer children, but not yet teens.) We have Mr. Clark’s sister’s granddaughters, (not sure what the relationship is, so we are calling them nieces...) staying with us for a month and one week into it, I can say I am older and more cantankerous than I thought I was.

The girls, ages 11 and 12, are nice enough. In fact, they are sweet, eager to please and have very good manners. It’s just that I’m like the mouse in that pop psychology book from a few years back — the one that didn’t like his cheese moved. Ever since the girls arrived, my cheese has been in a constant state of motion and at times that agitates this old mouse.

It’s been a long time since I had middle schoolers around and I had forgotten how loud and messy and scatter-brained they are. My hat goes off to the folks who teach this age. How do they do it? It’s like herding cats, only worse because cats have a longer attention span than most 6th, 7th or 8th graders.

The only time the nieces seem to truly focus is when something exciting is about to happen in the Wii game they’re playing. The rest of the time their thoughts are all over the map.

Katherine, the older one, likes talking on the phone — a lot. She also spends a lot of time texting. She likes doing these things so much that she showed up with two phones — one for talking, the other for texting. She bought them with her own money and shopped until she found a good deal on unlimited text and talking plans. The only time she is without these phones is during meals, when she is asleep and during the three hours each day her cranky Auntie Lorin makes her relate to the world rather than talk and text. The other thing Katherine likes is playing games on their Wii, which they, of course, brought with them on the plane.

Rain, the younger niece, is more varied in what she enjoys doing. She paints and draws and bakes cookies from scratch. She likes puzzles, watches TV and, of course, is a big fan of the Wii. She has also discovered my iPad, which means it is now MIA most of the time.

It’s amazing, the changes a young, tech-savvy mind can make, on an old mouse’s iPad...Old Mouse often has to fight back a melt-down while learning how to deal with the many “improvements” Young Mouse has made.

I remember my kids’ video games were loud, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t as loud as these Wii games are. Sometimes Old Mouse has to go outside and do something in the sweltering heat like weed, just to get those songs and sounds out of her head. (The girls would turn the sound down, but the remote is usually lost or buried under the couch cushions.)

Old Mouse has also apparently forgotten how much kids eat. We went to the grocery when the girls first arrived and every few days it’s time to stock up again on key items like green grapes and milk. Old Mouse has also forgotten how much laundry two frequent showerers who change their clothes almost constantly can generate. Another thing Old Mouse had forgotten was the trail of clothing, shoes, snack bags, drink glasses and diversions kids leave as they meander through the house. I can track the girls’ every movement simply by tidying up after them. Where did I find the time to get anything done, back in the day when I had kids in the house?

Then, there’s the chatting — the near constant chatting. They talk to each other, to the pets, to the TV, to the Wii, to me and to no one at all. For them chatting seems to be more of a way to process thoughts than communicate, which is fine, except that Old Mouse is used to rattling around in a quiet house all by herself, so her nerves are a bit thin.

If there’s a moral to this story it’s, “Be careful what you wish for, for you will surely get it.” Prior to this surprise visit by the nieces I was feeling wistful for the old days, when there were kids around and the house was less quiet. Ask and ye shall receive, Old Mouse, ask and ye shall receive.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not all grump and “Who moved my cheese?” around here. We are having fun together and Old Mouse is learning a thing or two, not only about Wii games and her iPad, but also about time.

It’s like the StoryPeople say, “Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life.”

Lorin Sinn-Clark is a writer for the Barrow Journal. She can be reached at lorin@barrowjournal.com.

This is not a news story. It is a column. I am not a reporter. I am a writer. There are plenty of news stories below my column, many of them by Susan Norman, our GPA award winning investigative reporter. Read on impatient reader, read on. And the next time my column annoys you so, simply stop reading it and move on to a real news story. I assure you, we will always have plenty of them for you.

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